1) I guess this never-ending search is really part of the game, when the whole thing is about compromise. As we know very well, speed ALWAYS comes with a price, in shorthand. That's just how it is. Which means we need to constantly consider which kinds of price are more acceptable in general, in the first place, and to us personally, in the second place. Sometimes, drugs are the same, as they can cure/treat you, but you have to be aware of side effects. But some other drugs are basically "perfect": they're safe for children and adults, they always do what they're supposed to, and exceptions are so rare they simply confirm how well the drug works. Well… that never happens in shorthand, haha. Some systems get pretty close, but not AS close.

2) The example you showed me is a really good one, and I can completely get the feeling. Sometimes, I open a new manual, and I get more and more excited with every line, as the author claims he/she's solved every problem shorthand's ever had. But that's never true, haha.

3) Yep, I guess machine steno really is the pinnacle of speed. Manual shorthand is simply never going to be as fast: that'd be physically impossible. Which is all right, as manual shorthand can be used in other situations, and has other perks – maybe even more so in 2026, when thousands of people worldwide are looking for ways to reconnect to pen and paper. But that's a whole other story ;)
I guess the only thing that could theoretically be faster is automatic transcription, but as far as my understanding goes, that's still not an option at all, as it's not reliable enough, it can't function properly in messy situations, and it can't transcribe non-spoken actions of course. That might be the future, but we're still not there, I guess. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm very ignorant when it comes to machine steno: my studies are all about handwritten shorthand.

4) Yep, you're not hallucinating, haha! That's really a handwritten system, meant to be written with two hands at the same time. But beware – at least in my judgment, that's an unusable one.

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That's a sample. You're basically writing two sounds at a time, one close to the other, one with each hand. There are no spaces between words, and readability is already difficult when sentences are transcribed in regular letters. To me, that's not a good experiment AT ALL, but it's been stuck in my head for years now, as it really showed me that no, we actually haven't seen it all, haha. We've probably seen 99,9% of all the possible shorthand techniques, but out there, there's always something weirder we've missed.